


Penitent God

by remarkable1



Category: Avengers (Comics), Loki: Agent of Asgard, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies), Thor: Tales of Asgard
Genre: Acceptance, Agony, Atonement - Freeform, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Bullying, Comfort/Angst, Community - Freeform, Crimes, Crimes & Criminals, Disowning, Enemies, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, F/M, Family Reunions, Gen, Guilt, Hate Crimes, Help, Jane Foster is a Good Bro, Judgement, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Ostracization, Penitence, Possible Slow To Update, Protective Darcy Lewis, Protective Thor (Marvel), Protectiveness, Regret, Rejection, Reunions, Sad with a Happy Ending, Self-Acceptance, Self-Denial, Self-Destruction, Self-Discovery, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Self-Reflection, Self-Sacrifice, Self-Worth Issues, Sentencing, Slow Burn, Suicide Attempt, Sulking, The Focus is On Loki's Redemption, War Crimes, Women Being Awesome, other tags as i think of them, self-realization, sorry - Freeform, wallowing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22351360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remarkable1/pseuds/remarkable1
Summary: Eighty people in two days. A mere handful compared to those Odin has taken. Loki is forced to relive some of his victims last moments, and get to know some of their situations personally.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis & Loki, Darcy Lewis/Loki, Frigga | Freyja/Odin (Marvel), Jane Foster/Thor, Thor & Jane Foster
Comments: 15
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

"Loki Odinson. You have willfully and egregiously slaughtered eighty mortals in the span of two of their Midgardian days. I, Odin Allfather, Ruler and Protector of the Nine Realms, do pass judgement upon thee, this day."

Loki stood, chained, muzzled, in rags, pushed roughly to bleeding knees before all of Asgard. The open air court was silent as a tomb, all of the people passing judgment through his adopted Father. 

All Loki could express was hatred and judgment with his burning emerald eyes, snarling low in his chest.

Odin ignored his defiance.

"I strip you of your power, your titles, and your rights and privileges due a Prince of Asgard. You have brought shame upon your family. Until you have atoned for your crimes, in whatever form that may take, you no longer have a family. I renounce you as my son. You are dead to me." One by one, the people of Asgard crossed their arms in an X over their chest, fists inward, closed their eyes and turned from the disgraced prince.

Odin gave him a long, heavy stare, then followed suit. Loki's eyes were desperate now, wet with emotion as they turned upon his ever-saving grace; his Mother.

He pleaded with her silently not to revoke her love for him. Not to cast him from her life. 

Ever so slowly, she raised her arms, placing them in the form of an X across her torso.

Loki shook his head, unbelieving, desperate, a guard grabbing him roughly by his dirty, unkempt hair, forcing him to witness the only person he'd ever truly loved unconditionally turn her back to him and erase him from her life. 

In shame, the guards marched him to the Bifrost, Heimdall ejecting the fallen God to Earth to serve out his pennance.


	2. Banished to Midgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki lands on Stark Tower's helipad during a developing snowstorm. Lucky for him, an unlikely savior comes his way, hurting herself in the process.

I'm experimenting with this fic, so bear with me. I don't have it written out or story-boarded. There are a number of ideas rolling around in my noggin. Updates will be very slow, at times, talking months. Feel free to subscribe and then let time flow by until it's done in the future, if that suits you. Thanks for reading. Ideas to incorporate into the fic are appreciated, and taken into consideration.

Loki slammed into something excruciatingly unyielding. He'd endured quite a few very nasty blows in his life, but this seemed to take on a new level of Hel in what he assumed was his new mortal body. He'd already been in poor shape, to begin with; his so-called Father had had him beaten, whipped, and in a cruel twist of punishment, managed to find a way to turn Loki’s own magic against him. The cuffs on his wrists were a brand-new design, still a prototype, if you will. It had given Odin great pleasure, at least in Loki's estimation, to use them on his wayward, adopted child. At least that part of the restraint could no longer be employed, with the God of Mischief’s powers stripped.

Each time Loki had tried to use his powers to test his restraints when he was still back on Asgard, the power had magnified tenfold. It turned into something that shocked him worse than anything he'd ever felt, even at the hands of Thanos, even at the hands of his brother, whom had done his very best to blast him from existence on more than one occasion with lightning bolts that seared the Asgardian heavens. The energy drain Loki had suffered was terrible. He felt weak, sick, even without the injuries to his person. Without his Seidr, he was nothing. A worthless piece of shit mortal, like the other deadbeats he'd presumably landed amongst.

Something was broken in his chest. He could tell as soon as he tried to draw a deep breath. Deducing he was in an open area due to the frigid wind whipping his soiled hair flat against his bruised cheek, Loki kept his eyes turned away from it, to at least spare him from blowing debris and blindness. Attempting to open them a slit, he found only one eye serviceable. The other throbbed terribly when he focused on it for any length of time. Great, just what he needed; further injury. Bright, white light reflected into his tunnel vision, causing the very same problem he'd been desperate to avoid.

Attempting to rise to his knees, a third grievous injury manifested. One leg would not cooperate, and he cried out into the muzzle - _him, reduced to this!_ \- against the agony. Flexing his hands, he thanked whoever was listening, no one, presumably, that at least he had use of those, as worthless as they were in the overly tight cuffs. It wasn't very pleasant. In mortal form, Loki was no more a threat to anyone in this state than a mouse under a Bilgesnipe’s hungry beak.

Each attempt to peer into the gloom with his good eye resulted in that same white vision assaulting his senses. A gust of fine powder flew up his nose, sending him into a violent coughing fit, from which he was hurled into a gray and red-tinged haze of agony. Each cough led to a wet feeling within him, feeling like he could draw less and less air. A punctured lung, perhaps? The feeling of drowning was not at all pleasant. 

Loki’s stomach heaved. Thank the Norns it was empty. It didn’t stop the acidic bile from burning his esophagus, culminating in a pool of sick across his tongue, forcing him to swallow it back down and restart the gagging process all over again.

Unable to cry out or ascertain where he even was, Loki felt his grip on reality slipping, welcoming death as a treasured friend, at long last allowing him the peace he'd so long sought but had always eluded him, survival instinct rendered impotent, screaming and clawing, to the frozen remnants of his forgotten, dying hindbrain.

\--

Darcy hated being sent out to the Quinjet landing pad. Out of all of the folks in the tower, except for Jane, Darcy was probably the one that hated the biting cold of New York the most. It sucked being sent up here like an errand boy, er, girl. Whatevs. Couldn't Bruce get whatever it was he'd forgotten his damn self? What was so important about the fucking meeting she'd been not-so-politely locked out of, that they needed this folder right the fuck now?

She was beginning to resent and regret taking this job with Janey. Everything seemed to be working out hunky-dory for the astrophysicist. The lady had a God and superhero for a boyfriend. 

Thor was nauseatingly sweet on Janey, too. It made Darcy gag, when she wasn't busy admiring the God of Thunder’s muscle-y goodness. 

The pay and benefits for working at the tower with Janey were fantastic. It was really nice not to have to scrabble about for semi-affordable housing, interview skeevy potential roommates, not to mention all of her furniture was provided. The in-house chef was pretty sweet, too. 

Still, only a couple of the heavy hitters even seemed to tolerate her, much less act like she even existed. The Winter Soldier was like a ghost, never bothering to afford her even a side-glance. She'd given up talking to him. Thor told her not to take it personally. Well, it was kind of hard not to, when you weren't even treated like an actual person. Whatevs. Again. She could live without James stick-up-my-ass Barnes.

Captain America's blow-off was sort of a - well, a blow to her ego. The man was all business, all the time. The few times she'd actually seen him interacting and letting loose, he had shut down as soon as she walked in the room, garnering her dirty looks from those around her like it was her fault he was a social asshat.

Finally reaching the top of the tower, beyond irritated the elevators STILL wouldn't allow her access to them, since she didn't have _'that level of clearance,'_ even though she was supposed to, Darcy breathed a sigh of relief. That lack of access was Tony and Pepper's doing. Or undoing. The lab assistant wasn’t about to crawl and beg for elevator access just because she felt like a fat sow plowing up eighty-something flights of stairs. At least her legs were getting stronger.

In her mind, Darcy imagined her fat ass dragging up the last flight of steps, gasping and wheezing, clearly out of breath. Darcy Lewis imagined she was allergic to exercise (despite the daily workout she got running stairs) and loved lattes and doughnuts just a little too much. Every time she vowed to cut back; someone plopped a large box of goodies in front of her face. Willpower kissed her goodbye on a regular and frequent basis.

She bent over at the top of the stairwell, gasping, pulling out her inhaler and taking a couple shots of albuterol. Fuck, being out of shape sucked when you lived with so many buff hotties. She felt continually inadequate, aware her self-image was her own problem, and no one else's'. It didn't help.

Vowing to spit in the next vat of pizza sauce, or sprinkle dirt in with the pepper shaker next time the crew was eating with Thor and Jane absent, she pulled on the oversized coat hanging on the wall next to the main exit to the helipad. No hat, no gloves, no boots. Fucking perfect.

 _"Everything you need's up there,"_ she snottily mimicked Steve. Fuck Captain America. He’d assured Darcy, in that condescending, ‘you’re a dumb civilian pleb’ tone, that there was plenty of gear to keep her warm at the entrance she now stood in front of. Then, he’d shooed her from the room like an errant child, earning her a sympathetic look from Janey and an annoyed huff from Clint.

_They hate me. They all hate me._

Even FRIDAY was silent most of the time, in regard to any requests Darcy needed to make. She wondered if the AI had been ordered not to respond to her unless it was extremely urgent. As defined by whom? Who the fuck knew.

Stepping out the door meant being blasted by stinging snow and sleet. It sucked massive ass. Her carefully combed and styled curls smashed into her mouth and the side of her face, blinding her. Staggering in her sandals to the Quinjet, then almost freezing to death getting the fucking thing to open for her, she was easily an icicle by the time she got inside. Of course, it wasn't heated, but at least she was out of the wind. 

”FRIDAY. Please turn on the jet long enough to warm up the interior.”

Nothing.

”FRIDAY. Unless you want me to interrupt Stark's and Steve's precious meeting I was not allowed to go to, and you want them to get their precious file folder before they send someone out to see if I'm dead, which I will be if you don't turn the heat on in here, you will fucking listen for a change and let me thaw out.”

It was a miracle, but the jet powered up and lukewarm air flooded the cabin, quickly heating to a satisfying burn when Darcy braced herself under one of the heat vents. GOD, that was a fucking relief. When her fingers got feeling back in them, she rummaged around.

"Folder, folder, folder, where the hell would I be if I was a folder that Bruce the Goose randomly set down?"

Spying it, finally, atop the very front of the Quinjet's piloting console next to the windshield, she pounced on it, alarmed when a viewscreen popped up when she accidentally bumped something.

"Oh shit, oh shit, how do I turn this thing off?"

Her attention was averted when she squinted at the helipad covered in a growing pile of sleet and snow. A lump that shouldn't have been there was prone, covered in some kind of dark material that blew around it like strips of rubber off a worn tire.

"Damnit. I hope that isn't something important. FRIDAY, can you give me an educated guess what that thing on the helipad might be?"

The AI was silent for a moment, then responded, "Judging by the size and shape, I would say it is either a mannequin or a body."

"HOLY SHIT! FRIDAY! can you pilot this thing over there? I need to check it out!"

"Checking."

FRIDAY did her thing and decided protocol dictated this was an emergency. “Firing engines, automatic control, investigative query mode, activated."

Darcy held her breath, scrambling to the emergency hatches for extra blankets and a medkit. Thankfully, all of that had been restocked after the last mission, thanks to her, and a pile of them fell on her. Only one medkit, but it would have to do.

A blessed pair of gloves and ski mask landed alongside the rest of the emergency goodies.

“FRIDAY, bring the entrance flush and parallel with the object. If it’s a person, they’re going to freeze to death if they haven’t already. Prepare emergency evac protocol.”

“Emergency evac protocol on standby. Shall I notify Mr. Stark of the situation?”

Why was this fucking thing even asking her? Not about to look a good luck gift horse in the mouth, she shook her head as she pulled on the rest of the cold weather gear, grimacing at her half-frozen sandaled feet. Then she remembered she needed to speak out loud. “Uh, no. Not yet. I’ll let you know.”

“Standing by.”

“Okay, open the exit, but try not to extend the stairs on top of whatever that thing is. I’m just going to check it out. If it’s a person, I’ll need to drag them on board. It’s too far to the building and that thing looks bigger than what I can handle dragging that distance.”

Complying, Darcy braced herself, and emergency blanket opened and ready, held in front of her like a shield. The wind, thankfully, was hitting the back of the jet, so it afforded her a mild windbreak, dispersing the worst of the sting.

Rushing to the helipad, she instantly noticed the howling wind had picked up and was rapidly blanketing the surface in accumulating ice and snow. This was going to be a fuck of a storm. Ducking down next to the mysterious thing, she scraped at it with her mittened hands, discarding them with a curse so she could more effectively push away the ice.

A thin veneer of encrusted, frozen sleet popped free and Darcy nearly reeled back in shock and surprise. For a full half-minute, she flopped to her ass on the frozen ground, feeling the urge to both cry and vomit in the same breath. Yet, she did neither. Mustering her resolve, Darcy swallowed her fear and resolutely grit her teeth, kicking away more crust until she was able to wrap the blanket over Loki’s prone form.

His face looked blue and he didn’t appear to be breathing.

“Stay with me,” she murmured, voice torn from her the instant the words were uttered.

With great effort she manage to get her hands under his armpits, and with a yank that pulled something in her lower back, Darcy dragged the heavy, dead-weight body up the ramp and into the jet. As soon as she was clear, FRIDAY closed it back up.

“D-d-don’t power down. I’ve got a frozen guy here.”

“I’ll alert the team.”

“NO!” Darcy shouted, unsure even as it came out, why she didn’t want FRIDAY to let anyone know what was going on. It certainly didn’t speak well for her sense of self-preservation. Loki, somehow, didn’t appear all that threatening in this state, however.

“Heat on, full blast.”

Hot air flooded the cabin in a rush, then backed off to a higher but stable temperature. Darcy ignored her scraped knees, frostbitten toes and screaming back muscles, focusing intently on reviving the man in front of her.

Lowering her head to his soaked chest, a breath of relief and slight sob sounded when she detected a heartbeat. Okay, okay, what was next? Right. Breathing.

He wasn’t breathing. Well, fuck a duck! How the fuck was she supposed to give mouth to mouth with that fucking muzzle on his face?

_Shit. I have to breath into Loki’s nostrils. Kill me now, please._

Bracing herself, she tilted his chin up and forehead back, extending his windpipe as she lowered her mouth to his nose, grimacing as she blew two breaths up his nasal passages. She waited ten seconds, then gave him more air.

Checking his pulse, it seemed steadier, stronger, so she continued, counting off the seconds. After what seemed like an eternity, Loki’s chest started to rise and fall, nostrils flaring mightily as he sucked in life-giving oxygen.

Darcy did start sobbing then as she ripped open three more emergency blanket packets, wrapping him practically from head to toe, rubbing at his extremities to get the blood circulating. She worked herself to exhaustion, and finally could no longer ignore her own agony.

Back spasming, it sent her into meltdown and she screamed. “FUCK! Okay! FRIDAY, you can go ahead and call someone now, I don’t think I can do this by myself!”

She waited for the AI to answer her, eyes closed, feeling a looming sense of dread when the AI didn’t respond.

“FRIDAY? Respond!”

Nothing.

“Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck the world. What the actual fuck is going on!”

She tried to get up and immediately fell back down next to Loki, trying not to die from the agony that was her lower back. “I swear to God, Loki, when you wake up, you are so going to pay for making me injure myself to save your stupid ass. I only did it for Thor’s sake. Dumb fucking cunt villain.”

Darcy felt sleepy, and try as she might, and as bad as the pain radiated, she couldn’t seem to stay awake. “This – this isn’t good,” she sighed, but succumbed to oblivion, resting her head on Loki’s chest as she slumped against him, just missing the slit of green peeking out from one eye before it rolled back and joined her in unconsciousness.


End file.
